TO: Anthony Marsh [J], 72127,2301 FROM: M. Duke Lane, 76004,2356 DATE: 5/15/95, 3:03 PM Re: E. Lincoln Dead Copyright 1995 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.@bThe following news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Reuters Ltd. WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Evelyn Norton Lincoln, personal secretary to former president John F. Kennedy for more than a decade, died of complications related to surgery Thursday, a family friend said. She was 85. Lincoln, 85, wrote two books about her experiences as Kennedy's secretary, "My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy," and "Kennedy and Johnson". Every year on Nov. 22, the day Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, she made the pilgrimage to Arlington National Cemetery to place three long-stemmed red roses on Kennedy's grave. She was one of the few people who knew Kennedy secretly taped conversations in the Oval Office, and when that fact became known in the early 1980s she valiantly defended it. "There wasn't any sinister motive on the part of the president to get any information on anyone in order to blackmail them, or whatever. It was just a recording of the events," she told the Washington Post in an interview in 1982. Raised on a farm in Polk County, Nebraska, Lincoln came to Washington with her husband Harold Lincoln in 1930, when he was working on the campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1951, she was working for a Georgia congressman when she identified young Massachusetts representative Kennedy as a shooting star and decided to volunteer in his office. "She decided he had what it took to go somewhere, and she was right," family friend Francis McGuire told Reuters. When Kennedy won his Senate seat in 1953, she was offered the job as his personal secretary. When he moved to the White House in 1960, she went along. And she was there in Dallas that fateful day in 1963 when he was assassinated. She kept a diary the whole time, and although she published bits and pieces in her books, the diary itself has remained secret. She told an interviewer in 1982 she would make it public only after her death. Asked if there were any bombshells in the diary, she said, "Oh, I think maybe there would be some. Some of the things that were said about other people." She said she only thought about leaving Kennedy's service once. That was in the Senate, when she spent half her time screening calls from young women who wanted to meet him. "He was charming. He had an Irish temper and when things didn't go right, he'd tell you about it," she told the Post. In another interview, she talked about booking appointments for Kennedy with his girlfriends. After Kennedy's death she worked on his presidential papers for several years, then worked on Capitol Hill as a secretary until her retirement in 1973. She is survived by her husband of 64 years. REUTER Copyright 1995 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.@bThe information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of the Associated Press. By JEAN CHRISTENSEN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Evelyn Norton Lincoln, who was personal secretary to President Kennedy, died Thursday in Georgetown University Hospital of complications after surgery for cancer, the family said. She was 85. Mrs. Lincoln was Kennedy's personal secretary from January 1953 when he started his first term in the Senate until his death Nov. 22, 1963, when she was in the motorcade in Dallas when he was assassinated. She had been hospitalized since April 2, said Francis McGuire, a family spokesman. Mrs. Lincoln was born June 25, 1909, on a farm in Polk County, Neb., and her father, John N. Norton, was a member of the House of Representatives. She came to Washington in 1930 with her husband, Harold W. Lincoln, and the two got involved in politics. She was known for visiting Kennedy's grave at Arlington National Cemetery every year on the anniversary of his death. In 1988, on the 25th anniversary, she went alone to the grave and laid three red roses near its eternal flame. "I always come. I haven't missed a one. I feel that I should honor him. It's the least I can do," Mrs. Lincoln said then. She said she "wouldn't give anything" for the experience of working in the White House with Kennedy. "That's why I'm grateful and I come out to the grave to thank him," she said. Mrs. Lincoln also was the author of two best-selling books, "My 12 Years With John F. Kennedy" and "Kennedy and Johnson." After Kennedy's death, she worked on his personal papers, many of which are in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and in the National Archives in Washington. She also worked for former Rep. James Kee, D-W.Va., from 1967 to 1973. Mrs. Lincoln graduated from George Washington University, where she majored in English and dramatics. She also attended law school for two years at George Washington. She is survived by her husband, to whom she was married 64 years. They resided in Chevy Chase, Md.